Gaila's Starfleet Instructor Hotness Rating
by Linstock
Summary: Gaila strives to develop a rating system to assist students with course choice in her own unique way.


Title: Gaila's _Starfleet Instructor Hotness Rating_.

Author: Linstock

Pairing: Gaila, Uhura/Spock

Rating: G

Type: Humour [okay, downright silliness] and romance.

Warning: Mention of sexual harassment and nudity.

Summary: Gaila strives to develop a rating system to assist students with course choice in her own unique way.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Star Trek characters or profit in any way from this writing except for warm fuzzy feelings when readers leave comments.

A/N: Once again SpockLikeCats has whipped this piece of nonsense into shape. I am forever in her debt.

Words in italics are thoughts.

**Gaila's ****Starfleet Instructor Hotness Rating (SIHR).**

Gusting wind blew sleety rain against the windows in waves. The hissing noise as it struck the pane made Gaila shiver. Earth weather affected her like that sometimes. Whoever invented sleet … well, they just shouldn't have.

Nyota, lying on her stomach, was propped up on her forearms reading; her legs, bent up at the knees, waved back and forth in a rhythm only she understood. Gaila suspected it related to the cadence of the language Nyota was studying.

Gaila sighed. A line from an old Earth children's book she had read once ran through her head.

"Too wet to go out

To cold to play ball

So we sat in the house.

We did nothing at all."*

That about summed it up. Gaila flopped onto her bed, rolled onto her back and worried at the problem that had been bugging her all week - this semester's instructors. It was a new term with a new team. She couldn't make up her mind if Lieutenant Amos Finlay (Physical Conditioning and Combat) or Mr Raymond Blake (Computer Modelling) was hotter.

It was a tough call - on one hand there was the appeal of the rough tough guy with brawn and strength - on the other the hand, there was the smoothly suave appeal of brains and wit - difficult.

"Hey, Nyota, which do you think is hotter, brawn or brains?"

"What?" her roomie looked up dazedly. Gaila frowned. _Honestly, that girl gets way too engrossed in study. _

"Which is hotter, brawn … or brains?" said Gaila slowly, as if she was talking to someone hearing impaired.

"What … ? Why? Gaila, I was _reading_." _Nyota's almost whining,_ thought Gaila.

"Well, which one? What does it for you - brawn or brains?"

"_What_ are you talking about?" said Uhura, sounding rather exasperated.

"I would think that was perfectly clear," said Gaila a little huffily. "I'm rating the hotness of this semester's instructors and can't decide between Finlay and Blake."

Uhura just frowned. "You need to get a life," she announced, turning back to her book.

"I can't," said Gaila, okay, now _she_ was whining, "it's raining and cold and I need help."

"Got _that_ right," came the muttered reply.

Gaila sat up. "This is an important issue."

"Oh right, the 'hotness'…" (Gaila could just see the air quotes in Uhura's voice) "… of our instructors is important, more important than study, evidently."

_Nyota sounds so missy- prissy sometimes_.

"Just how does it matter at all?" enquired Nyota.

"Well think about it," said Gaila rising to the challenge. "If students had a reliable hotness rating for instructors it would help them choose courses."

"On the basis of hotness? …which is so much more important than, I don't know, degree pattern, _competence_ or knowledge?"

_Yep, Nyota is definitely getting all prissy_.

"Not **more **important, but definitely a rating factor. I mean you need to have _something_ to look at during those long lectures."

"You are supposed to listen, learn and **look** at the _learning materials_."

Gaila pulled a face. "Come on, we both know how much time we can spend fantasising about our lecturers."

"Your time maybe," said Nyota primly.

"Oh, now, tell me that you have _never_ missed a chunk of a lecture because you were too busy stripping the lecturer with your eyes," challenged Gaila. Uhura's silence was all the confirmation Gaila needed.

Gaila extended her hand. "So," she started as if continuing a lecture, "on one hand we have Lieutenant Amos Finlay, tall, swarthy, ruggedly handsome, physical conditioning and combat training instructor with a fit, toned body and an ass you could use to crack walnuts."

"Euuww, I'm not eating those walnuts!" Nyota fastidiously wrinkled her nose.

Gaila ignored her and continued, "On the other hand" - extending the other hand - "we have blonde and brilliant Mr Raymond Blake, brainiac instructor in computer modelling, who's totally suave in a British James Bond-ish sort of way."

"He _is_ British."

"I know that."

Uhura had evidently given up on getting back to her study. She rolled on her side and said seriously, "Gaila, when it comes to someone's personal preferences, 'it depends' is the only answer you can get."

"But what if we rated them on given attributes of hotness?"

Uhura raised an eyebrow.

Gaila was ticking off on her fingers. "General physical appeal, intelligence, nice ass…"

"Surely that would go under 'general physical appeal'?"

Gaila pursed her lips. "Nooo, I think it is a category all its own. "

Uhura sighed and rolled on to her back.

Gaila continued, "Then there's personality."

"Okay," said Nyota in a long-suffering voice, "based on those parameters, who do you crown as this semester's hottie, so I can get back to my study?"

Gaila bounced off the bed.

"Let's rate them all - a simple weighted linear equation should suffice."

Uhura rolled her eyes and appealed to the ceiling. "Why couldn't my roomie be a normal sane person?"

"Oh, you can scoff!" said Gaila. "But this could be one of those historic moments like the discovery of warp core technology or effective non-greasy lubrication." She struck a pose. "The moment the SIHR was first trialled!" Turning to Uhura, Gaila said, "you can be a consultant."

"I'm honoured," Uhura said drily.

While she'd been talking Gaila moved around the room, picking things up seemingly at random. When she had an armful of objects she walked over to the double drawer unit at the side of the room.

Gaila swept all the items presently on top of the drawer unit into a heap on the floor. Nyota just rolled her eyes.

"What, pray tell, is the SIHR?"

Gaila grinned. "**S**tarfleet **I**nstructor **H**otness **R**ating."

She began placing the items one by one on top of the unit as her roommate watched in bewilderment.

"Lieutenant Amos Finlay, Physical Conditioning and Combat!" Gaila placed a large, solid-looking purple bottle of body wash on top of the cabinet.

"Commander A'Tura, Flight and Strategy!" She placed a tall, thin blue vitamin bottle next to the shampoo bottle.

"Looks just like him," said Uhura.

"Same colour anyway." Gaila shrugged.

She placed a chunky black bottle of scent with a shiny black lid next to the vitamin bottle and declared, "Lieutenant Commander Mohamed Abib, First Aid and Interpersonal Relationships!" Gaila turned around, grinning wickedly at Nyota.

Uhura couldn't help but smile as she pictured the squat, swarthy lecturer with his glossy oiled hair.

Gaila held up a white tube of hand cream, running her hands suggestively up and down its length. "Mr. Raymond Blake, Advanced Computer Modelling and a smoooooth operator," she purred, and placed it carefully in second place in the lineup.

Next Gaila held up a data stick shaped like a finger. (She thought it amusing to have a finger sticking out of her computer, especially since it moved suggestively as it processed.) "Lieutenant Commander A'tula'raol, Interspecies Ethics." Nyota had to admit when the Lieutenant Commander spoke the end of his nose did sometimes wriggle in a way reminiscent of that data stick.

Then Galia plunked down two other containers. "Ms Chan, Tactics -" a plain flat tin of hair mousse - and "Lieutenant Commander Co'he't, Xenoethics," represented by one of the aggressively bristling toothbrushes favoured by Orions.

Galia stepped back and surveyed the array. "I think that's everybody," she said.

Uhura frowned. "You've forgotten one."

"Oh, who?"

"Commander Spock, Xenolingusitics?"

"Oh, him."

"Yes **him**, he's an instructor too," said Nyota.

"Weeell … yes," said Gaila, "but do you think he's worth consideration under SIHR?"

Uhura sat up. Gaila knew that look, the way her lips were pressed tightly together. Then she spoke in a clipped tone. "**Oh?** You don't?"

"Well he's just so … you know, unapproachable, all cold and tight." Gaila performed an exaggerated dumb show of Commander Spock's habitual stance and the way he seemed to contract when someone approached him. She was spot on, painfully so. "He's just **not **attractive."

"To _you_. No discriminating."

"Oh, all right," said Gaila sulkily. She'd used all her items and she looked around the room for something else. Finally she pulled the top drawer open, extracted a single black sock and tossed it down at the end of the row of items, toe toward the edge of the unit. She stepped back, frowning, then reached forward. Using two fingers of each hand, she plucked delicately at the sock until she had raised two little pointed bumps.

"There," she said inspecting her handiwork, "ears … it looks just like him. Commander _Sock!_"

Gaila squeaked as she was hit in the back of the head by the pillow Nyota threw with considerable force.

=/\=

The items stood in a solemn row on top of the drawer unit. First was a bottle of purple body wash, next came a tube of hand cream, a blue bottle of vitamins, a thin tin of hair mousse, followed by a squat jar of scent, a toothbrush, a finger-shaped memory stick, and at the end of the whole row lay the black sock with its pitiable "ears".

Weeks passed. Nyota grew used to seeing these items lined up on top of the drawer unit.

There were some heated arguments between Gaila and herself over the order in which the items were placed. It changed frequently. One evening Nyota would come in to find the bottle of purple body wash in the primary position. On the next day the hand cream would be the head of the queue. The order of the other items changed too, but none advanced past third place.

It was stupid but it galled Nyota to see that pathetic limp sock slouching at the end of the row. Commander Spock deserved a _much_ higher SIHR.

Nyota argued the point on several occasions. "It is ludicrous that he's behind Finger-Shaped Memory Stick and Scent Bottle. Anyone can see that he's way more physically attractive!" ... _very_ attractive, in Nyota's opinion.

It was strange - although Gaila appeared obsessed with physical appearance when it came to all the other instructors, she completely dismissed Commander Sock - _Spock's_ obvious physical attractions on the grounds that he had the personality of "lint".

Nyota knew better … a lot better.

Since the beginning of term she'd been Commander Spock's assistant.

Before she started the job she admired him as an academic and teacher. And, yes, from the first time she saw him she'd been all too aware of his physical attractions. Lean and well built, he moved with a lithe grace she found compelling. That comment of Gaila's about stripping an instructor with her eyes? Let's just say Nyota had whiled away many happy hours musing on the exact shape and depth of Commander Spock's sacral dimples.

Working as his assistant and aide was rewarding and interesting. Commander Spock's academic standards were high; he didn't tolerate fools or slackers but he went out of his way to assist anyone who was prepared to work. Nyota quickly found that teaching a subject was the best way to learn it and her own mastery of xenolinguistics increased rapidly.

So had her friendship with Commander Spock. As his assistant she shared his office. She quickly grew to enjoy his quiet deadpan humour and witty insights. At times he had a diffidence, almost shyness, she found endearing.

Nyota found Commander Spock was becoming the yardstick against which she measured others. They rarely measured up.

=/\=

Gaila marched into the room grim-faced. She went straight to the SIHR lineup, picked up the purple bottle of body wash and, holding it with her thumb and forefinger as if it was contaminated, dropped it into the recycler from a great height.

She turned to face Uhura, her complexion flushed a deep green. "I rubbed that on my body every _night_," she said, shuddering deeply. "How could I be so wrong?" She blinked and Nyota thought she was close to tears.

Uhura sighed softly. "What happened?"

"He grabbed my ass - he said he was steadying me ..."

Eyes wide with compassion, Uhura nodded, wishing she could have spared her friend this - she'd tried to tell her, but Gaila just didn't listen.

Gaila looked dejected. "I did notice how some of the girls avoid him. I made excuses, you know - he was correcting _form_, he didn't _mean_ to touch her breast, he was just helping her up, it was _accidental_." Her voice trailed away.

Nyota said clearly, "It wasn't."

"No … it wasn't."

"It never has been."

"I know."

"It's unacceptable."

"Yes. I was blinded by his _ass_," Gaila wailed. "My fatal flaw, I suppose."

Nyota came to give her a hug. "Hardly fatal. Some of us are joining to put in a formal complaint. I'm not sure how much effect our complaint will have; there's no real evidence." Now Uhura wanted to wail. "All the footage from the security monitors in the gym has been corrupted. So it'll be the word of a group of students against a respected instructor. I checked up on him. He's decorated you know, for valour. I doubt if we'll get anywhere." She shrugged.

Gaila looked fierce. "Is that a fact?" She turned to look at Nyota, her forehead creased, her blue eyes narrowed, a determined little smile on her lips. Nyota had seen that look before when a particularly difficult code was not complying with Gaila's wishes. "We'll see about that."

Within days, a file of video clips culled from the security cameras in the gym was forwarded to Admiral Barnett with the letter of complaint signed by every student in the class. Uhura knew whoever had tried to destroy those files hadn't reckoned on the skills of Gaila of Orion. Within a week Lieutenant Amos Finlay left Starfleet Academy.

Nyota dearly hoped he was now assigned to the outer reaches of the Neutral Zone.

=/\=

There wasn't a scandal. The enquiry was handled efficiently and discreetly, causing only a minor ripple in Academy life.

Commander Spock asked Nyota about the incident; she assured him she was fine. He looked at her intently and she had a feeling he wanted to say more.

=/\=

The SIHR languished after that. Gaila seemed to have lost her confidence. But one night Gaila stood for a long time, gazing at the lineup. She picked up Lieutenant Commander Mohamed Abib, aka the chunky bottle of scent, and put him into first place.

"He's a very good teacher and lovely man, always smiling and telling little jokes, but respectful too. I like him. I like his class. Does it really matter that he's, well, a squat bottle?"

"What about Mr Blake? I thought he was **the** contender now."

Her roommate frowned and hesitated before saying, "He made a small programming error last week and tried to cover it up but we all knew..." Gaila shrugged. She was as much a perfectionist in her field as Nyota was in hers. "Blake should have played it straight, owned his mistake and showed the class how to fix the problem."

"It's what Commander Spock would've done. _If_ he made an error."

Gaila stared hard at the scent bottle and nodded.

Nyota could tell that Gaila was undergoing a fundamental shift in thinking.

=/\=

She was not the only one undergoing a fundamental shift.

Uhura couldn't really say when friendship changed into something more. A glance, a shared meal, a touch, a meaningful look … eventually an embrace, a kiss ... so many small experiences. By degrees Commander Spock and Cadet Nyota Uhura advanced in mutual discovery. Nothing had changed. Everything had changed.

It surprised Uhura how natural it was. There was no angst, no soul searching, no sneaking or hiding. They simply were themselves, following their established patterns in public and at work. They were both professionals, focused on their careers; they did what they'd always done, but now they did so alongside a person they loved.

Spock was naturally discreet. No Vulcan would be publically demonstrative ... which suited Nyota, who liked her passions private. In that line Spock didn't disappoint.

Spock hadn't lived on campus since he was a cadet. He maintained private accommodations equidistant from the campus, the Vulcan Embassy and the San Francisco Institute of Technology, where he consulted on several research projects. His flat was close enough to all three to commute easily but far enough away to ensure his privacy.

No one questioned a cadet spending spare time off base.

Unnoticed by anyone, their worlds quietly shifted, settling into a new pattern that contained "us".

=/\=

Gaila almost danced into the room. She paused and looked around thoughtfully, pulled open her "special" drawer and took something out.

Uhura tried not to look. There were some things she did not want to know about. Gaila's top drawer was in that category.

Gaila went over to the much-neglected SIHR lineup.

At the head of the queue she placed a slim metallic grey dildo.

Nyota sat up. "Okay, who is it?"

Gaila picked up the dildo rapturously, holding it to her chest as she rocked from side to side like an excited five-year-old. She grinned, holding out the dildo and said formally, "Cadet Uhura, meet _Captain Pike_."

"What! He's not a lecturer."

"How wrong you are," replied Gaila, stroking her hand lovingly down "Captain Pike" before replacing him at the head of the lineup.

"Captain Christopher Pike is, my dear roommate, the guest lecturer on my Tactical Simulation Design elective. He's been regaling us with stories of battles and the importance of comprehensive tactical training." Gaila sighed deeply. "He's on campus while the final touches are being made to the Enterprise. So for the last three weeks of term, he's all mine!"

"And the rest of the class?"

Gaila dismissed the rest of the class with a flick of her fingers.

=/\=

Two weeks later when Nyota entered their room, Gaila stood frowning at the SIHR. "Uhura, what is this?" She pointed a derisive finger at the black sock between the squat jar of scent and the tooth brush.

"I made some adjustments," said Nyota, innocently feigning disinterest.

Hands on hips and foot tapping impatiently, Gaila raised her eyebrows.

Uhura suddenly felt like a student called to the headmaster's office. This was ridiculous. She screwed her courage to the sticking place.

"I'm a SIHR consultant, so I'm giving you the benefit of my opinion."

Nyota walked over and boldly placed the black sock right next to the grey metallic dildo. "Commander Sock -" She closed her eyes in irritation. "Commander _Spock_ belongs up here, maybe even here." She defiantly placed him at the head of the line up.

Gaila looked at her more in sorrow than in anger. "Nyota, Nyota," she said, shaking her head regretfully, "your inexperience is showing. I think his ass is blinding you."

_Got __that__ right._ Nyota had a vivid memory of the drop-dead gorgeous back view as Spock walked naked across his bedroom Sunday night. The lean strong lines of his back, the pronounced medium furrow and the flat diamond shape sculpted by his spinal erectors, guiding her gaze down to the soft curve of his buttocks and that luscious intergluteal cleft - definitely enough to blind anyone.

Gaila continued, "I thought we'd learned from our mistakes." She picked up the sock with her thumb and forefinger and placed it back at the end of the line. "You have to face facts; he's just not a contender."

Nyota seethed, then decided to just let it be. Why did it matter? Really, did she want anyone else knowing about his charms? _No way. Bite your tongue, girl. _

Nyota did, in fact; over the next few weeks she continued to bite her tongue - and when she had the chance she bit Spock's too. Honestly? More a nip than a bite. She tried nipping a few other things as well. He was surprised but not shocked and a very interesting time ensued.

=/\=

Term inevitably ended. Gaila was heading out to visit a clan sister in Hawaii and Uhura would soon board a shuttle to Africa.

Gaila stood before the array of this term's lecturers as represented by her motley assortment of items. Without ceremony she picked up the recycler and swept them all, bar one, into it, plonking the bin back onto the floor. Picking up the grey dildo, she turned to face Nyota.

"I'm taking Captain Pike with me on holidays." She gave a little "I wish" sigh, popped "Captain Pike" into her carryall and zipped it up.

Nyota and Gaila exchanged warm hugs, wishing each other well, then Gaila shouldered her bag and left.

After the door swished shut Nyota crossed to the waste bin. She bent and pulled out the dejected-looking black sock and placed it back on top of the chest of drawers. Carefully she pulled at the sock, restoring its "ears". She stepped back and smiled.

_Finally_ he was where he belonged. There was no comparison, no contest at all. Maybe others couldn't see it, but he was simply in a class all his own.

Smiling contentedly Uhura reached into the bin again, retrieving a chunky black bottle. She sprayed a little "Lieutenant Commander Abib" on her pulse points before leaving the room. She had a liaison with a certain Commander; they had farewells to say and all weekend to say them.

Nyota smiled as she left the room.

**The End. **

=/\=

* "Cat In The Hat" by Dr Suess.

The SHIR lineup: 

Lieutenant Amos Finlay - Physical Conditioning & Combat. Purple bottle of body wash.

Commander A'Tura - Flight and Strategy. Blue bottle of vitamins.

Lieutenant Commander Mohamed Abib - First Aid and Interpersonal Relationships. Chunky black bottle of scent with a shiny black lid.

Mr Raymond Blake - Advanced Computer Modelling. Tube of hand cream.

A'tula'raol - Interspecies Ethics. Finger-shaped memory stick.

Ms Chan - Tactics. Flat tin of hair mousse.

Lieutenant Commander Co'he't - Xenoethics. A toothbrush.

Commander Spock - Xenolinguistics. Black sock.

Captain Pike - Guest Lecturer, Tactical Simulation Design. Grey metal vibrator.

A/N: The genesis of this piece of nonsense was my bad typing. I wrote "Commander Sock" so often I felt he deserved a story ... What do you think?


End file.
